What education is needed to be a manga artist?

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The education needed to be a manga artist is usually a high school degree or equivalent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. A manga artist is part of a general category of fine artists, such as illustrators, according to MyMajors.com. The median annual salary for an illustrator in 2012 was $44,380.

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Manga artists draw and illustrate using a wide variety of media. Although many fine artists and illustrators do not have formal schooling, a bachelor's or master's degree in a chosen field improves a job seeker's prospects for finding employment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also notes around half of all fine artists are self-employed. Fine artists are expected to grow by 3 percent until 2022 with 1,300 more positions in the job market.

As an art form, manga can be traced back to the 11th century with animal scroll paintings by Toba Sojo. About.com states that modern manga came about thanks to Rakuten Kitazawa, when he founded the magazine Tokyo Puck, which featured Japanese cartoonists. Japanese illustrators combined western comic strips with their own style to create manga.

The New York Times maintains a specialized list of bestsellers in manga format. The "Attack on Titan" series by Hajime Isayama spent 48 weeks on the bestseller list from 2013 to 2014.